No means no —

ACTA on life support as key EU committee rejects it

The full European Parliament is now expected to reject the treaty next month.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been facing an uphill battle since protests against the treaty broke out across Europe earlier this year. Three different committees of the European Parliament recommended rejection of the treaty last month.

Now the fourth—and final—committee to consider the treaty has rejected it by a 19-12 vote, giving opponents strong momentum going into next month's decisive vote of the full European Parliament. The trade committee's vote is considered crucial because it has formal jurisdiction over trade agreements like ACTA.

Last year, ACTA looked almost unstoppable. Negotiated in secret, it was signed by President Obama last year with little fanfare and was expected to win approval easily in Europe. But protests against America's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) inspired parallel protests against ACTA in Europe, causing several countries to express reservations about the treaty.

"This was not an anti-intellectual property vote," said ACTA rapporteur David Martin after the vote, according to the BBC. "This group believes Europe does have to protect its intellectual property but ACTA was too vague a document."

If, as expected, the full European Parliament rejects the treaty next month, it will be effectively dead in Europe. And that would essentially neuter the treaty worldwide.

ACTA was never going to require significant changes to US or EU laws. Rather, its primary function was to codify US- and EU-style copyright laws as a global standard, then pressure smaller, less developed countries to adopt those same policies. But without European ratification, it will be much harder to portray ACTA as an international standard.